Stop Sex Infections the Smart Way

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Stop Sex Infections the Smart Way

SxCheck reports negative test results via digital certificate, but gives you a call if you test positive. View Slideshow Editor's note: *Some links in this story lead to adult material and are not suitable for viewing at work. All links of this nature will be noted with "NSFW" after them.*I'm willing to bet that if you are or have been sexually active, you have contracted a disease during sex.

I can think of several times in which I have caught a cold through sexual contact. I gave strep throat to my college boyfriend days before my symptoms set in. Twice.

And I'm not quite sure who to blame for my months-long bout with the Epstein-Barr virus, or EBV, also known as "infectious mononucleosis," when I was 21. Probably myself, but they don't call it "the kissing disease" for nothing.

Not once did I feel even the slightest twinge of embarrassment about picking up germs through sex. In fact, at times, I've felt a bit smug that we had sex despite a cold, or joked about lovemaking being the best treatment for all kinds of ills.

But had I picked up a bug identified as a sexually transmitted infection, suddenly, I'd have run smack into a cultural wall of shame and secrecy.

I'm tired of it. I'm tired of people treating STIs like they're some sort of judgment, a whole separate kind of illness. In fact, herpes and EBV have a lot in common:

Once you have been infected with EBV, your body may periodically shed (or give off) the virus throughout your lifetime, possibly spreading the virus to others. This can occur despite the fact that you do not have symptoms.... Some newly infected people may not have any symptoms of mono and may not be aware they are spreading the virus. – (WebMD)

I'll carry EBV for the rest of my life and no one gives a damn, even though it's entirely possible that I'm passing the virus to young people through sharing utensils or smooching. That's not as much of a danger now that I'm too old to go around French kissing twenty-somethings, but 10 years ago I could have sent a dozen young dot-commers to the hospital, we worked that closely together.

Arguably, herpes is more devastating than mono because it brings a social overhead other viruses don't. After all, it is a – cue echo effect – Sexually Transmitted Infection.

Sex educators try to get people to think of STIs as a health issue rather than a moral one, figuring that if we can lift the veil of shame, we can get more people tested and aware and making informed choices about sexual activity. Just look at the debate surrounding the human papillomavirus vaccination – which ultimately protects women against cancer – to see how shame can get in the way of good health.

SxCheck, which launched this month, is the latest contender in the movement to change how we think about STIs. It's a joint project between Stanford graduate student Doug Wightman, 23, and the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, or AIM, offering the general public an STI testing service based on one the adult industry has developed over a decade.

AIM made the mainstream press a few years ago when actor Darren James(NSFW) returned from a trip to Brazil and tested positive for HIV.

"AIM detected all of the patient's partners within 24 hours, and found three infections within 10 days," says AIM founder Dr. Sharon Mitchell. The partners didn't work or have sex for 60 days until they tested negative two months in a row; no one else became infected. AIM was credited with acting quickly and effectively stopping an industrywide epidemic before it began.

The SxCheck process is simple. You decide which STIs you want to be screened for, order your test online, go to a local blood draw station, and access your results on the website. It differs from its sister AIMCheck in one way: Your results are not sent to producers and agents.

It's not anonymous, as you need to show your ID at the draw station. But it's not public, either. Your results are available only to you, although you can choose to share them if you want to.

Doug hopes you will.

"Rather than people acting reactively toward testing, it now becomes preventative," he says. "You can get tested before hooking up, and have your results available digitally when you want to share them."

Negative test results are available online via digital certificate, while positive results – and what you can do about them – are communicated to you over the phone.

Doug believes that by making STI testing routine, and the results easy to show to potential partners, SxCheck will have a profound impact on social behavior.

"When people come to realize the prevalence of STIs in the general population – about a third of Americans contract an STI by the age of 35 – a certain degree of acceptance will set in," he says. "The large and diverse immediate response suggests that people are accepting SxCheck very quickly."

Doug envisions us embedding HTML in our online dating profiles to share test results and the date of our last screening, and he's already working on making results accessible (securely) by mobile phone. That makes information available when you need it, without the social awkwardness of carrying a lab slip folded up in your back pocket "just in case."

Many STIs can be cured if you catch them soon enough. Yet out of ignorance or fear, many people don't get tested until it's too late and they've already given an STI to others.

"Chlamydia and gonorrhea are very common, but they are also easily treatable. Same with syphilis," he says. "You don't need to carry a stigma or suffer for life."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one out of five Americans have genital herpes, although the rate of infection has dropped in the past few years. You can't get rid of that one, but you can manage it and significantly reduce the chances of passing it on – if you know you have it.

Coming from the technology and adult industries, the SxCheck team is intimately familiar with issues surrounding confidentiality and sensitive information. One concern is whether insurance companies or employers will ever have access to what tests we choose, or our results.

No, says Doug, although SxCheck operates under the same constraints as any other health-care organization and test results might have to be disclosed in certain circumstances if required by law.

For example, in California, you might be held liable for passing an STI to a partner, in which case test dates and results might be subpoenaed by the court. (How this recent case will affect people's willingness to be tested for STIs is still unknown.)

Otherwise, "we don't share information with any third parties," he says. "We don't work with insurance companies at all, like other facilities do, so in that sense we are more restrictive."

Doug sees SxCheck as a perfect opportunity to provide sexual health information within a very personal context: your test results. Along with information about safer sex practices, he wants to help people whose tests come out positive, offering guidance for treatment and sex-positive health care.

"We don't want to force anything down anyone's throats, and by no means are we reinventing the wheel," he says. "We want to encourage people to get tested and share their results, to promote dialogue and understanding."

Funny, that last bit is Sex Drive's mission too.

See you next Friday,

Regina Lynn

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Regina Lynn reminds you that not knowing something doesn't make it untrue.